


Longer Than a Human Lifespan

by ElenaCee



Series: Devil's Trap [7]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Wings, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, God has a Plan, Winged Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaCee/pseuds/ElenaCee
Summary: Trixie has a deep, dark desire, Chloe still has doubts, and Lucifer wants forever with Chloe more than he does his grace or his wings back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Working my way through the tropes here, lol.

 

“Tell me,” Lucifer said, leaning forward and giving the latest target of his charm a winning smile. “What is it you desire more than anything?”

Chloe, too, leaned forward, the way she had done dozens of times before when the Devil exerted his powers on an unwitting subject.

There was a thoughtful silence from said subject.

“Come on,” Lucifer coaxed, dialling up the charm along with the wattage of his smile and the purr in his voice. “You can tell me. You want to tell me, don’t you. I promise I won’t tell anyone. What do you want, hmm?”

“Chocolate cake,” Trixie finally said.

Chloe smiled. She had expected nothing else.

Lucifer, however, didn’t seem to be satisfied with that. “Really? Chocolate cake? That’s it? You can have that every day as per your deal with Dan. No, there must be something more. Something… deeper. Something you don’t want anyone to know. Your deepest, most secret desire. Come on, child. Tell me.”

Chloe was about to stop him. This was only about a birthday present; surely he didn’t need to lay it on quite so thick. And if he really insisted, he could always get her one of those hellishly (sorry) expensive dolls Trixie didn’t seem able to shut up about. Which, she was pretty sure, was what her little monkey really, really wanted, anyway.

“I want…” Trixie began.

“Yes?”

“I want you to be my Daddy, Lucifer.”

_ Oh. _

Lucifer pulled back, dropping the charm. “Oh!” he said, exchanging glances with Chloe. “Well. Not what I was expecting.” He visibly switched gears. “I don’t see how that would be possible, child. Your heritage is a  _ fait accompli _ , you know.”

Trixie clearly didn’t know. “What’s a fay uhcawmplee?” she asked, looking from Lucifer to Chloe and back.

Chloe let him field that one while her mind was busy processing that little revelation.

Trixie had handled her parents’ separation and subsequent divorce remarkably well; maybe a little too well. True, the girl was unusually resilient, which she could have gotten from either side of the family. She had rarely talked about missing her Dad, and until now, Chloe had just assumed that her daughter was merely coping well. However, Chloe had noticed that Trixie certainly talked about Lucifer a lot.

So that was what had been brewing in her little monkey’s mind. She’d been latching onto Lucifer as a replacement.

If Chloe was honest with herself, she had been having certain thoughts that somewhat ran in a similar direction every now and then. Not that she’d ever planned on saying anything out loud. If there was one thing the Devil wasn’t, it was husband material. She didn’t think. Was certain. Almost certain. Pretty much.

Apparently, though, Trixie didn’t see it that way. And why should she? She was just a child going by what her heart told her.

“But I don’t even like children,” Lucifer was saying, confirming Chloe’s estimation about his general lack of aptitude as a parental unit. “Besides, the Devil doesn’t play house.”

Trixie abandoned her coloring, slid off her chair and walked around the table towards where he was seated.

He raised his arms, looking at her in alarm. “What are you up to now, Spawn?”

Giggling, she climbed onto his lap and settled in for a hug, both her arms under his open jacket, her head snuggled into his chest.

Lucifer threw Chloe a nervous look, but finally decided that he might as well let his arms settle where they naturally would, which happened to be loosely wrapped around the little girl.

Chloe grinned. She would never cease to find that adorable - Satan discombobulated by a harmless child. Her child.

Conquest made, Trixie snuggled in with a vengeance. “But you like me,” she announced. “And you like Mommy. A lot.”

He threw Chloe a glance, grinning and doing that thing with his tongue where he curled it behind his front teeth suggestively. “You’re right there, Spawn.”

Chloe felt her face heat up. Damn him and how effortlessly he could turn her on.

“And she likes you,” Trixie continued the construction of her case, staring up into Lucifer’s eyes earnestly. “Her cheeks turn red when she talks about you.” A glance at Chloe and back at him. A giggle. “And right now, too.”

“Really?” Lucifer grinned at Chloe, then looked back down at Trixie. “Well, what do you know? You’re right again. Well played. Do go on.”

“Aaand,” Trixie obligingly went on, clearly gearing up for the  _ pièce the résistance _ , “I really, really like you, Lucifer.”

“But why?” Lucifer asked, now sounding honestly baffled. “Why would you like me? I’ve never given you a reason to.”

Chloe leaned forward slightly. She wanted to hear the answer to that herself.

Trixie raised her index finger. “You’re honest. You never lie, and you never pretend to feel something you don’t.”

Lucifer nodded in acknowledgement. “That is true.”

A second tiny finger was raised. “You protect Mommy and me from bad men.”

Lucifer nodded again. “Always.”

Chloe nodded as well. Surprisingly mature reasoning for an eight-year-old, she had to admit.

“And!” Trixie raised a third finger, which required some effort and concentration. “You’re the Devil! And I really, really,  _ really _ want the Devil for my Daddy. I would never have to be afraid of anything ever again. All the bullies would leave me alone. Please? Please, please,  _ pleaaaaase _ ? Say yes! It’s what I ‘desire more than anything in this world’!” She even managed a fair approximation of his accent.

For the second time in just a few minutes, Chloe found herself floored by something her daughter had said.

“Out of the mouth of babes, eh?” Lucifer said with a look at Chloe.

“Please, please, please!” Trixie went on, ignoring Chloe’s open-mouthed amazement, totally focused on the Devil whose lap she was sitting on.

Lucifer frowned down at her. “Why aren’t you afraid of me if you know I’m the Devil?”

“Because you only punish bad guys, duh,” Trixie said with that special world-weariness only children were capable of. “But you haven’t said ‘yes’ yet. You asked me what I wanted, and I told you. So, please?”

He looked into her eyes, dark eyes meeting equally dark ones, his expression as earnest as hers. “How long have you known?”

“Since the beginning,” Trixie said, back to her ‘duh!’ expression. “You told me. And you punished the mean bully. I saw your eyes in your reflection on the door. So cool! And then Maze showed me her demon face. And then I just knew!” Her face lit up again. “Please, Lucifer?”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Trixie’s face dissolved into an even happier smile. “No. Never ever.” She reared up to wrap her arms around Lucifer’s neck, pull his head down to her level, and whisper his ear. “You can have my Mommy if you say yes. She would really like that.”

Chloe had heard that, of course. Trixie had not yet mastered the art of the inaudible whisper.

“Well,” Lucifer said, settling her back onto his lap, “maybe you should ask your mother what she thinks about all this before you throw her into the bargain like that.”

It was becoming hard for Chloe to keep a straight face by then, epiphany or no. That changed, of course, when Trixie turned her lethal puppy-dog eyes on her. “Mommy? Please? Can we adopt Lucifer? That ways he’d always be here. You could always smile at him and blush and be pretty and happy. And he could always protect us and be happy with us. Win-win… win, right?”

Oh God, she thought. Big life-changing decision at twelve o’ clock. All hands to the war room. Aloud, she said, “We’ll have to think about this for a bit, monkey, alright?”

“But you’re not saying ‘no’, Mommy?” Still with the puppy-dog eyes.

She grimaced. “Not saying ‘no’, monkey.”

Trixie twisted her head to aim the Eyes at the Devil. “Not saying ‘no’, Lucifer?”

Lucifer apparently was as much putty in Trixie’s hands as Chloe was. “No, I’m not saying ‘no’, Spawn.”

She clapped her hands. “Cool!”

 

* * *

 

These thoughts had stayed with Chloe all day while doing paperwork at the precinct; not enough to seriously distract her, but certainly enough to make her stare vacantly every so often as the scenarios paraded behind her eyes.

It was probably true that Trixie needed a constant male presence in her life. As it was, she had Dan when mandated, and her mom and, well, a demon at all other times. Adding Lucifer to it would probably balance things out in that regard (and when had Chloe’s life taken the left turn into a territory where that was even a sane thought?).

And Chloe, to her own surprise, found herself in a place where she might be ready to let someone else into her heart and life again. Well. Not just someone else. The Devil himself.

She shook her head. Surreal.

But true. Since she’d met him, no other man had even begun to interest her. All the males of her acquaintance simply paled in comparison to the lethal combination of charisma and childlike naivete, of aching gentleness and barely contained ferocity, of gleeful joie de vivre and carefully hidden vulnerability that was Lucifer Morningstar. If it was only up to her and her deepest, darkest desires, there would be no question whom she would choose to spend the rest of her life with.

But this wasn’t just about her and what she wanted. This was about her family. And as for Lucifer, only his Dad knew whether he was even capable of being in a long-term relationship, let alone one with a child in it. The only certainty here was that he had never been in one before. Had probably never wanted to, in all of his long existence.

Could she trust someone like him with her domestic life, with Trixie’s? Was it in any way realistic (hah!) to expect him to take responsibility for familial and parental duties, to be a life model for her daughter to emulate (double hah!)? And for that matter, would he be willing and able to leave his life of one night stands and substance abuse behind? With his own daddy issues, was he even able to play the role of a father?

How much would Chloe be able to forgive him (and there would certainly be things she’d have to forgive him for, Lucifer being Lucifer)? How many mistakes regarding Trixie could he make before she decided that her daughter was more important than her own happiness? How much would she be willing to compromise if the mere thought of Lucifer with another woman made her stomach sink and her blood run cold?

Monogamy? The Devil? Triple hah!

No. Dark fantasies and the fact that she was madly, deeply in love with him aside, she obviously needed her head examined for even entertaining this crazy notion. Trixie would just have to grow up with a single mom (and a demon) like so many other children did. Besides, she was almost nine. Surely the worst was behind her.

Things would just have to continue the way they were right now, which wasn’t so bad, surely. Friends with benefits, and professional partners.

But that thought didn’t sit right with her, either, and it kept nagging her well into the evening. And so, when her shift had finally ended, she found herself heading to Lux.

“Hey, monkey,” she said into the speakerphone, “I’ll be a bit late, okay? Tell Emma to wait until I’m there, yeah?”

“Maze is here, Mommy,” Trixie’s voice filled the car. “She’s helping me with homework. Are you working late?”

“No, I’m on my way to Lucifer.”

“To talk to him about marrying him?” She could practically see the gleeful smile on her daughter’s face from the sound of her voice.

“Maybe.”

“Oh please, please, please, Mommy!”

“Monkey…” She sighed, hunting for the right words. “I know you like him very much, but this is something that we will have to think about very carefully, okay? For one thing, he’s never been with us for longer than a few hours at a time -”

“Then we’ll take him with us on a trip!” came Trixie’s excited voice. “Or he can stay with us for a whole weekend! Watch movies, help me with homework, make us breakfast! Go to the zoo with us!”

“He may not like that, Trix.”

“He does!” the high voice piped excitedly. “He’s already made you breakfast when you didn’t even want him to, Mommy.”

She had to laugh. “Oh yes, that’s right, Monkey.”

“And, and, he already sleeps in your bed!”

Right.

_ Well, it’s actually not such a bad idea _ , Chloe thought.  _ Sort of a test run. More than I had with Dan. _ “I’ll ask him, okay?”

“Cool!”

 

* * *

 

The penthouse was dimly lit when the elevator doors opened for Chloe; at first sight, it seemed to be empty of its inhabitant. As she walked farther in, though, she noticed the balcony doors standing open, revealing his familiar tall slender shape beyond.

At the sound of her approach, he turned from where he had been looking out at the city, saw her, and lit up.

Literally.

A barely noticeable glow was surrounding him, as if a soft light had been switched on behind him.

Her beautiful Lightbringer.

She felt her lips stretch into a smile, feeling quite lit up herself at the sight of him. Wondering why she kept doubting their thing. Surely, with such a strong foundation, everything else was just details.

When he stepped from the relative darkness of the balcony into the penthouse and into the light in the room, the effect disappeared. But Chloe was sure she’d seen it. By now, she had moved past thinking that her eyes were deceiving her where he was concerned.

Wordlessly, he approached her, looking at her with a peculiar expression in his eyes, and took her in his arms gently, almost reverently. Still silent, he held her against him, resting his cheek against the top of her head. She could feel his warmth, the beating of his heart, and an underlying tension vibrating through him.

“What’s wrong?” she said, craning her head back to look at him.

She could hear as well as feel him sigh. “Nothing’s wrong. I’ve just had a sudden thought.” His arms tightened about her briefly, carefully, like she was the most precious thing in the world. “Par for the course, apparently, of being human. Not sure I like it.”

She smiled, returning the hug. “Want to talk about it? It’s what humans do when they have things on their minds.”

“So I’m told.” He let go of her with tangible reluctance and took her face in both hands, peering at her earnestly. “I’ve never understood how just talking about something will change anything, though.”

She put up her own hands to touch his face, knowing how much he loved it. “Sometimes it helps just getting things out into the open.”

He gave her a lopsided smile, eyes closing briefly at her touch. “I acknowledge your expertise in human matters.”

They sat down on the couch together. Lucifer took her hands in his, looking down at them as his thumbs stroked the backs of her fingers.

He looked so distraught that Chloe decided to distract him rather than force him to voice his thoughts. “Do you know that you’re glowing?”

It worked. He raised his eyes to hers, a confused expression in his. “Glowing?”

“Hmhm. Just a little bit.” She raised their joined hands. The glow was just barely visible on his hands where his skin was in shadow. “See?”

He stared. “I… don’t understand. Why would He do this?”

She freed one hand to caress his face. “Because you’ve earned it?”

Abruptly, he threw his arms around her, holding her tight against his body. “I don’t want this. I don’t want any of it. He’s given me back my wings, too, and I don’t want them, either. All I want is to be with you, forever. Forever. I don’t… want to lose you, ever. I can’t. No.” He drew a shuddering breath. “Dad. Are You listening? A deal, alright? I’ll give You back all of it, my grace, my wings, in exchange for immortality for Chloe. Alright?”

So that’s what had been on his mind. This was what learning how to love had also given him - the fear of losing it all again, the fear of the agony at being the one left behind.

Maze had seen it coming. The Devil was well and truly trapped by his own feelings, with Chloe the bait. And there was no escape, not anymore, for either of them. Not after they’d both come this far.

She hugged him back, hard. “Lucifer…”

“Dad.” His voice sounded broken as he held her close. “Do You hear me? I don’t want sodding grace, or flight. All I want is eternal life with her. Just… don’t make me face eternity alone after she’s gone, Dad. Please. There’s not enough bloody therapy in the cosmos to keep me from going insane if that happens. You were gracious enough to demonstrate that to me, remember?”

She certainly remembered the vision God had sent him a while ago; remembered both his raw agony at waking up and thinking her gone, and his helpless relief when he found her next to him, and she tightened the hold of her arms around his waist even more.

“So, Dad, if You value my sanity, grant me this one favor - immortality for Chloe. I promise I’ll never ask anything else of You ever again. You made her for me, apparently. So let me keep her for longer than a few bloody decades, alright?”

As abruptly as he had seized her, he let her go again, looking at her out of eyes glistening with tears. “If… that’s okay with you, that is, of course. I’m sorry. You may not even want this. I realize I shouldn’t be striking bargains like this without asking you first. I’m sorry I presumed….”

“Lucifer.”

He looked at her, quivering with tension, his eyes huge and pleading.

“It’s alright,” she said, pulling his head down and kissing him gently. “I want forever with you, too.”

“You do?”

“Hmhm.”

“But… We’ve gone over how much I’m not worthy of you -”

“Shut up.” She kissed him again. “You’ve got your grace back. Don’t you realize that your father is showing you right now how much you’re worthy?”

He frowned. “I’d love to, but it’s never been that easy. He’s never just done something nice for me. Not without a quid pro quo. Not since….” He trailed off.

“Then I’d say it’s high time, wouldn’t you?” She caressed his face, her heart aching at the way it made his breath hitch. “You’ve been punished enough, Lucifer. More than enough, for long enough. And you’ve certainly done more than enough to redeem yourself.”

He looked at her. She could see in his eyes how much he wanted to believe her. But she could also guess how hard it must be after so long. He tried a smile, but it was weak and tremulous.

Still, she rewarded him with another kiss. “The Devil is worthy of being loved, Lucifer,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his. “I’ll keep telling you this until you believe it.”

She felt his warm breath on her lips as he gave a weak laugh. “You may need longer than a human lifespan for that.”

In a flash, she realized how true that was.

Lucifer had spent eons alone, feeling abandoned, rejected, even despised. The few years she could give him trying to make up for that were but a drop in the ocean compared to that. And when she was gone...

“I don’t want to exist without you,” he said softly, brokenly, echoing her thoughts.

Helpless, she did what she always did when Trixie came to her with her own existential crises - distract and evade. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? We’ll have to figure out living together first, before we can think about doing it forever.”

He heaved a harsh sigh. “Right.”

“And also… Did I hear you say you’ve got your wings back?”

It worked, again. He relaxed, his thoughts visibly redirecting from the nebulous future to the here-and-now. “Oh yes, Dad has given them back to me. But like I said, I’m not keeping them. Don’t need them.”

She didn’t think she’d ever understand how he could be so nonchalant about this. “But how? Since when? And… can I see them?”

He looked into her eyes; she was relieved to see an amused twinkling in his. “You humans and your fascination with flight. Well. You’re immune to everything else, Chloe, so I assume you can see them if you want. I was just outside to stretch them for a bit when you came in.”

She looked at him expectantly, and when he didn’t move, she got up and pulled him to his feet. “Well, come on, then!”

He let himself be dragged outside. “Are you aware how much you resemble your spawn when you get like this?”

But she refused to be offended. Wings! “Shut up and show me.”

Now, he was full-on smiling. “Positively adorable.”

“Lucifer.”

Still smiling, he turned around to face her, his back to the railing. There was a sharp whoosh of displaced air, and from one moment to the next, a pair of huge white wings extended from his back, spread out to both sides, quivering slightly as he adjusted his balance when the wind caught in them. Like the rest of him, they shone with a faint glow, outlining him against the backdrop of the LA night sky.

Chloe became aware that she was staring with her mouth open, so she shut it with a snap. Mesmerized by the sight, she stepped up to him, one hand outstretched, needing to touch the feathers to see whether they were as soft as they looked.

He arched the wings back briefly, stretching them out to their full length and flapping them twice. A gust of wind blew Chloe’s hair back from her face, demonstrating how powerful the wings were, before Lucifer pulled them back in, extending one forward around his shoulder towards her waiting hand, spreading the primaries like a fan.

Delighted, she touched one of the long, nearly straight pinions, feeling it give a little at first and then push back slightly to maintain its position; keeping her touch light and delicate.

He chuckled. “No need to be so careful. Those are weapons. I’m not a chicken, you know.”

“Weapons? I don’t -”

She broke off when she found his other wing between her and his body, the pinions firm at her throat with just a hint of sharp edge, for a bare second before he flicked the wing away again with a whoosh and a gust of wind.

She swallowed. “Woah. Okay. Got it.”

He looked at her worriedly, but when she took this in stride (and really, after seeing his Devil form, nothing else about him could possibly spook her), he relaxed and folded his wings behind his back, the shoulders towering above his head and the tips just about brushing the floor.

“Why won’t you keep them?” she asked the question that was burning on her mind. “They’re so gorgeous….”

“I told you,” he said. The wings disappeared from sight with another woosh. “I very much expect that they come with a price, like my old ones did. I’m not going back to being Dad’s obedient soldier. He’s either taking them back, or I’m getting rid of them another way.”

She felt physically ill at the thought. “Lucifer….”

“But not just now,” he added. “These don’t really feel like my old ones did, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt for now. There’s a very slight chance that they’re not the mental shackles I suspect them to be.”

She sighed. “Thank you. I don’t think I can stand the thought of Maze cutting them off.” Stepping close to him, she put her arms around him in a loose hug.

As she had half expected, he froze briefly before returning the hug, still not quite used to spontaneous demonstrations of affection.

“Anyway,” she went on, remembering why she had come here in the first place, “would you like to come over to mine and have dinner with Maze, Trixie and me? Stay overnight and for the weekend, maybe?”

“Like a good, domesticated Devil?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

He sighed, sounding supremely put-upon. “Alright. But I refuse to read your spawn a bedtime story. I’m the Lord of Hell. There’s a line that cannot be crossed.”

Chloe highly doubted that; after all, he’d done it before, and Trixie wouldn’t take no for an answer. But she was willing to take each battle as it came. “As you wish, my Lord.”


End file.
